Notes From Abroad: Morocco is written by Fatima Sugapong and is the first in a series.
The streets of Rabat, Morocco come to life through the seductive scents of the merchants’ freshly baked goods. Shop owners wait patiently by their candy stands and hole-in-the-wall boutiques as willing customers negotiate their ways into a cheaper buy, speaking in both Arabic and French. A small piece of common sense I seemed to be lacking this evening: never whip out your money while trying to negotiate a better price! Ha! Nevertheless, they’re always up for a bargain.
Many of the older generation walk up and down the medina, a marketplace made up of family owned businesses. Those families live in the homes where they open up shop. Everything here is peaceful and chaotic all at once. There is no visible violence but more negotiations for prices on the produce–the language rapidly switching from French to Arabic. There is so much art that exists here, from the vibrantly colored walls, to the intricate tiling of the homes, all the way down to the speech.
Fatima Sugapong has been studying abroad and reporting in Morocco with the program, SIT: Field Studies in Journalism and New Media.
Check out the “Reporting Morocco” website here: http://reportingmorocco.org/
